GM, Ford to pay UAW workers about $250 each in quality bonuses

DETROIT (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Co., 10 weeks after ratifying a new labor contract with the UAW, said union hourly employees achieved vehicle-quality targets and will be eligible for about $12 million in bonuses.

The $250 bonus per eligible worker will be paid out in employees' Dec. 16 paychecks, Kim Carpenter, a GM spokeswoman, said Wednesday in a phone interview. The "vast majority" of the automaker's 48,500 UAW-represented workers are eligible, she said, without giving more specifics.

Ford Motor Co.'s 41,000 UAW workers will receive the bonuses this Friday, Ford spokeswoman Marcey Evans said in an e-mail to the Detroit Free Press on Wednesday. That's because the company's U.S. plants met competitive targets, the newspaper reported.

GM CEO Dan Akerson has said GM's new four-year labor contract keeps the automaker competitive by only marginally boosting the company's $5 billion annual labor tab. Senior workers won't receive a base wage increase and the union accepted that some pay would be based on GM's profitability.

Annual quality bonuses are dependent on GM's target for incidents per 1,000 vehicles that have been in service for two months, Carpenter said.

"We were 98 percent of our target, and so the payout is $250 per eligible UAW employee," she said.

GM gave wage increases for entry-level workers, $5,000 signing bonuses and other benefits that the company estimates will total $675 million in costs through 2013. The automaker estimates it will get $460 million in savings to partially offset those payouts, according to a Sept. 28 presentation to analysts.

Labor costs will rise 1 percent a year, which is the smallest increase in a GM contract in four decades, the automaker said in September.